


Something There That Wasn't There Before

by WebbedUpKatanas



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, Mentions of Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 00:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4808534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WebbedUpKatanas/pseuds/WebbedUpKatanas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I uh... I novakained? The inspiration for this fic was given to me by charlion! I still feel a little weird about the pairing (because of the age gap) but I also kinda love it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something There That Wasn't There Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [charlion_em](https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlion_em/gifts).



Kaine knows who's coming for him before he hits the ground. That blue glow, that smell of ozone and the crackle of the air around him is a dead giveaway. Thankfully, dead isn't what he'll be in a few minutes since he doubts the little punk has gotten over his morals, especially given his Avengers status. 

Still though, this promises to be unpleasant.

“Kaine!” there are arms around him before he can react, and his first instinct is to throw the other man to the ground before he realizes that the life isn't being slowly squeezed out of him, nor is he being flipped. He's being hugged.

Huh. He was not expecting that.

“Dude it's been like a year or something! Aracely says you've been busy like in some weird uh... Zone or something, but she also said you don't have a phone? What's up with that? Who doesn't have a phone?” Nova is babbling in his ear, and Kaine feels that old familiar prickle under his skin, the one reserved for the most annoying people in his life, who all seem to be the type to cling. Or maybe that's just the weird glow making him feel itchy.

“Get off me.”

Sam pulls back, grinning widely. “You haven't changed at all!” he says, far too cheerfully for someone pointing out a flaw. “Man I missed you. Last time I saw you was at the New Warriors reunion and you broke that glass and stomped out without even saying goodbye.”

Kaine remembers. He's not proud, but on a list full of life events that he regrets that one barely even gets an honourable mention. 

He'd always figured the New Warriors were the type of team that would die out quickly and stay dead, made up as it was of a ragtag bunch of losers and hasbeens. But not for the first time in his short life and definitely not for the last , he was completely wrong. They'd worked together from time to time over the last five years, cropping up in his life individually and as a full team far more often than he ever could have expected. 

He hates how remembering this last year going by without seeing any of them makes his chest ache in a bittersweet unexpected way.

“What the fuck do you want?” he growls, still certain that somehow this is going to explode in his face. He's been leaving a bit of well... carnage isn't a word he likes to use since the microverse, but that's sort of what it's been. The year has been a rough one, a savage one, and coming back to a world where people are more breakable has taken some getting used to.

The Avengers have noticed of course. This wouldn't be the first time they sent someone to deal with him, but it might be the first time he doesn't send them back bruised or with anything broken. Nova may look older, his shoulders broader and a hint of stubble on his chin under that blue glow, but Kaine still feels that same protective urge he has for Aracely over him. After all Sam was the baby of the team, no matter how old he's gotten since then.

“Dude, I came to say hi. I told you already. I missed you,” Sam says like it's obvious. As though Kaine should be used to people wanting to be in his company. Used to them missing him.

He doesn't know what to say, so he turns away instead, shooting a web and trying to bite back a smile when Nova joins him, a steady blue glow at his side. Sure he's annoyed, but the kid has a way of growing on people and Kaine is no exception.

“Where are we going?” Nova asks cheerfully, like people just swing away from him halfway through a conversation all the time. “Please tell me it's to get food, I'm starving.”

Kaine finds himself altering his path before he realizes what he's doing, headed towards one of the restaurants he likes just a few blocks away.

“Fine. Let me guess, you don't have a wallet in that space suit?” he says, already knowing the answer.

Sam shakes his head, not even looking ashamed at all.

“Fucking great.”

Sam beams at him, the Nova Force shining brighter around him momentarily.

“Thanks Kaine, you're the best!”

Sam is wrong, but he doesn't want to argue. He'll buy the mooch some food, suffer through his presence for a few hours and then hopefully he won't see him again for a long while. As much as he's learned to... care for the other New Warriors, prolonged exposure to them is usually more than he can bear.

All he has to do is survive a few more hours and then he'll be free.

….......

Kaine once had a rash that lasted for months on and off. It was a nasty, itchy, horrible thing that would go away for a week at most, though sometimes it was only a day or two before it would crop back up and he'd be ready to rip his skin off just to get some relief again.

Nova is a lot like that rash.

Only this time Kaine is reasonably certain that Sam isn't the manifestation of a witches curse. At least he's probably not. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

The point is, the brat has been hanging around him way too much lately. In the past four months barely a week has gone by without Sam flying in to 'help' or just to hang around with him and Aracely.

“Earth to Kaine, come in Kaine,” Sam laughs, the sound of his name startling Kaine out of his thoughts. “What are you even thinking about in there?”

He opens his mouth to respond, probably with something deep and moving like “None of your fucking business” but Aracely beats him to it.

“He was thinking about you,” she says flippantly, shoveling more chinese food into her mouth and practically bouncing in her seat in happiness as she chews.

Sam blinks, and Kaine wishes he was wearing his helmet because at least then he wouldn't have to see the way his eyes light up as soon as the shock and confusion wear off.

“Really? You were?”

Aracely answers for him again, clearly having swallowed the abundance of noodles in her mouth whole. “Mhm. He thinks about you a lot.”

“About how much of a pain in the ass you are,” Kaine clarifies, unsure why he suddenly wants to turn his face away and hide. Sam looks smug, like he thinks Kaine is lying.

“Okaaaay,” Sam says, drawing out the a sound. He leans in until their arms are pressed together, warmth seeping through Sam's hoodie (and why the fuck is he wearing a hoodie when it's about a thousand degrees outside?) and making Kaine feel too warm and fidgety. “Sure Spider-Man.”

“Don't fucking call me that,” he hisses through his teeth. Five years and this asshole still pulls the Spider-Man bullshit every fucking time just to piss him off. Only now that Sam isn't a kid anymore Kaine wouldn't mind punching him out so much.

Aracely laughs like the traitorous traitor she is, and Kaine has to clench his fists to keep himself from flipping the table. He settles instead for giving her a ferocious glare, one that speaks of the terrible, despicable and painful things he could do to them both.

Aracely and Sam just laugh harder.

“I hate both of you,” he says, finally shoving Sam away.

Then Sam is giving him a very different kind of look, the one he's been giving him more and more over the past few months. It makes Kaine feel uncomfortable, like he wants to squirm out of his own skin. Because Nova is what? Nineteen? Twenty? And while he's reasonably sure that it's normal for someone that old to be looking at other people like that, he’s also painfully aware of the fact that he's in his thirties and that Sam should definitely be looking that way at someone far more age appropriate. Plus there's the fact that he's know this runt since he was a little tiny fifteen year old, which doesn't quite sit right with him.

The problem is that Sam has grown up to look well... Kaine doesn't really want to think about it. He tries not to think about how the scrawny kid who never got a second glance has filled out. He's got nice abs, broad shoulders and handsome features now that he's lost a little more baby fat. 

In fact Kaine spends a lot of time trying to ignore how his eyes are a gorgeous bright blue, his lips full and too often stuck out in a moody pout or a wicked smirk which just serves to call more attention to them. And then, because the universe fucking hates him, there's his skin, smooth and tan. It darkens so easily, making it obvious when he's been spending a lot of time out in the sunshine. Just the thought of his skin so smooth and warm to the touch... how he's grown now, yet still small enough that Kaine could dwarf him if he hovered over him, pressed him against-

“Ahem,” Aracely clears her throat pointedly, raising an eyebrow at him.

Fuck.

This is awful.

Sam Alexander is too young for him. He's too young and he keeps pressing against him every chance he gets, and giving him those looks and touching him in ways that are clearly meant to get him thinking thoughts like the ones he’d never considered he'd ever have about the Nova.

“Well I'm gonna go get ice cream!” Aracely says, standing up and ignoring the way Sam's face lights up at the mention of dessert. “Bye.”

“I want ice cream too,” Sam pouts after her as the door closes, leaving them alone. “Why'd she leave so fast?”

Kaine thanks his lucky stars that Sam happens to be as dense as he is pretty. Which was a very Parker thought, god fuck his life.

“She got tired of you chewing so loudly,” he grunts, standing up from the couch and taking the food to the garbage. Which he never does. That's what room service is for, but he needs a little space right now.

And a little space he gets, or more accurately a little space hero following him into the kitchen, standing way too close for comfort, as he's accustomed to do.

“Do you have ice cream?” he asks, following Kaine as he moves to the other side of the room to escape.

“No.”

“Do you really think about me all the time?”

A little rougher. “No.”

Sam smiles widely at him, handing him a takeout container to put in the fridge. “Cool,” he says, like Kaine's words hold no weight at all. “So do you wanna watch a movie? Or would you rather sulk some more and be all broody?”

It's a bad idea, dimming the lights, pressing together on the couch in the cool glow of the tv, but so few of Kaine's ideas are good that he's gotten used to acting on the bad ones by now. 

“Fine,” he says, hoping beyond hope that Sam will be smart enough to stay on his own side of the couch. 

He doesn't, but it could have gone worse, and Aracely rejoining them halfway through leeched even more of the tension out of the air. Yet Kaine still feels exhausted by the time Sam flies away, a firefly disappearing into the night sky.

“It's okay,” Aracely tells him soothingly before she retreats to her room. “Sam is nice.”

That is entirely besides the point, but she doesn't give him a chance to respond, and Kaine isn't even sure what he'd say.

He stands in the hall for a second glaring at the wall, and then he goes to bed.

He spends hours staring at the ceiling and thinking about Peter. About Ben, and all the things they would tell him. He thinks about what they'd do and how they'd always pick the right choice, while he's here lost and bound to make the wrong one.

When exhaustion eventually takes it's toll he dreams of warm laughter and a bright blue glow dancing behind his eyes.

….......

Kaine is covered in what he's almost certain is blood, and he's pretty sure most of it isn't his own.

There had been a battle, fucking aliens of course, and things hadn't been going well.

The Avengers were mostly there, with some notable exceptions, but things had been looking bleak, and for a moment Kaine had honestly thought it was all over. He'd always hoped he'd die (for the final time) at night, more comfortable in the cover of darkness, but of course these fuckers didn't even have the decency to attack at a reasonably late hour. They'd come at noon, so he was going to die in the dirt with an empty stomach and dripping with sweat from the too hot fucking sun.

And to add insult to injury they'd ripped his mask off. Fantastic.

Things had been reaching a peak of shit awful when suddenly there was a blast of blue, signalling the arrival of backup.

For once seeing Nova flying above him had been a relief rather than an annoyance.

And now here he was, battle over but up to his damn ears in who knows fucking what kind of alien fluids, and all he can focus on in the stupid brilliant smile on Sam's face and the sound of his too loud laughter ringing out in the sunshine.

“We did it! We did it! Oh my God Scarlet Spider, that was awesome,” he cheers, at least having the decency to get Kaine's stupid supername right.

Sam's hand slips into his while he's still trying to wipe a fleck of... something off of his face, and then Sam is rocking up onto his tiptoes and pressing a kiss to his mouth.

What. The. Fuck.

He doesn't pull away, which he guesses means he's somehow come to a decision about the Sam issue. Probably because Sam is kissing him senseless, and it's almost impossible to think beyond the warm wet press of his mouth, the slide of his tongue into his mouth. He grabs Nova's waist roughly, pulling him against his body and swallowing the sound Sam makes at the treatment.

The kiss lasts for too long and not long enough, and Kaine isn't sure how to feel about it. Pissed off sure, but... there are other emotions there too. Ones he really doesn’t want to dwell on.

“Wow,” Sam says when they break apart.

Kaine agrees, not that he'd do something as stupid as say it out loud.

Sam grins, his eyes so bright and so so blue, and leans up for another kiss. Kaine rushes to grab his shoulders, pushing him away to arms length and ignoring the upset frown he gets in return.

“Stop” he says, not sure if his voice is rough from the battle or from the kiss. Then at Sam’s crestfallen look the weak pathetic part of his brain prompts him to add “This really isn't the place.”

“What? Why?” Sam looks adorably confused, his forehead all crinkled up and mouth turned down at the corners. Kaine really has to stop looking at his mouth before he does something stupid.

“There are heroes everywhere.” They can't see Sam, the rising star of the hero world kissing a monster like Kaine. They can't see Kaine with someone so much younger than him shoving his tongue in his mouth. This is wrong. This is-

“What are you like ashamed of me or something? I thought you liked me,” Sam says, the hurt in his voice striking Kaine right in the chest.

“Who said I liked you?”

It's the wrong thing to say, but at least Sam takes a step back, Kaine's hands falling off of the young heroes hips to hang limply at his sides instead.

“You... keep buying me food. We've been you know... straight up cuddling on the couch. I've seen the way you look at me, and you never kick me out or leave even when you get mad and you'd normally just stomp away.”

Kaine blinks. He hadn't thought Sam was that perceptive.

“It's not... you're too young,” he says, and Sam rolls his eyes.

“I'm twenty one. I'm old enough to make my own decisions. You're not that much older, you're like thirty two or something.”

“Thirty four,” Kaine corrects, acutely aware that there are heroes close enough to hear, and that a few of the bolder ones aren't even pretending not to listen.

“Whatever. That's not even bad, come on. Is that seriously what your issue is?”

His issue is that he's known Sam since he was fifteen. His issue is that people will think he wanted him back then, when this is a very very new attraction. His issue is that he still feels too old, too experienced to date him. His issue is... he doesn't give a fuck about any of those things when it really comes down to it.

“Come on,” he says, not waiting for a response as he webs the highest building around and swings himself up.

He feels better at the hotel, out from under the eyes of all those perfect heroes. He hates feeling like a specimen. Like a spider in a glass jar for people to gawk at and study and dissect.

“So like, are we here to makeout?” Sam asks hopefully.

Kaine doesn't dignify that with a response.

“Do you really want this?” he asks instead, like a mature adult.

Honestly he'd much rather just jump out the window and swing off, but Nova is faster. He'd find him.

“Yeah dude, I do. Thought I made that pretty obvious,” Sam says, sidling closer in a way Kaine figures is meant to be either seductive or reassuring. It's hard to tell, mostly he just looks like he's about to trip.

“I'm not-” he isn't sure how to say this. How do you convey to someone that no matter how much time has passed, how much good you've done, you'll always be a monster. The past five years have proved more than anything that he can't live a normal life. Every time he thinks things are going well, that maybe he can be as normal as anyone stupid enough to call themselves a hero can get he gets sucked into a murder world, or forced to become a literal monster, or killed. Or worse.

Sam is a hero sure, but whatever kinds of things he's seen in space, whatever evils he's fought here on earth, he doesn't understand what going down this road means. He doesn't deserve to end up with someone as foul and irredeemable and rotten inside and out as Kaine.

“You are though,” Sam tells him, stepping into his space. Whatever he sees on Kaine's face, it's enough to coax him into leaning up again, kissing him soft and slow.

Kaine wants to protest, he wants to stop this before it goes too far, but he can't find the air. Sam has stolen it all from him, and he keeps stealing it over and over until both of them are panting and Sam is beaming up at him in pure joy.

“This is gonna be good,” he tells him reassuringly. There's no trace of doubt in his voice, no hint that he doesn't fully believe his words.

Kaine wishes he could be that sure. He hopes Sam is right, but somehow he can't bring himself believe it. The world doesn’t work like that, and optimism has never been any damn use against stopping things from crumbling down around him. 

….......

Kaine tries to have rules for their relationship. The first of which he had told Sam that night when they first got together.

“No vertical kissing,” he'd hissed when Sam tried to shove him backwards onto the couch. He'd gotten a pout in return, and an annoyed “You do realize I've had sex before right?”

Still the rule remained. No sex until they figured out what the fuck they were doing here.

The no vertical kissing rule had lasted a week before Sam had realized that you could still blow someone when they were standing, and after that it was out the window.

After that Kaine had given up on figuring out any other rules, secure in the knowledge that Sam would just break them.

The sex was good, but oddly Kaine found he enjoyed the other stuff better. 

They fought well together, ate well together (on his cash), and even days spent inside away from the world seemed that much brighter with Sam around. He also tended to drag Kaine out and around town, doing cliché bullshit that Kaine would normally rather die than be caught doing. 

And sure Sam had been forced to use the helmet to physically drag Kaine out on a picnic at one point, but otherwise he went fairly willingly. If you count non stop complaints as willingness. Still, there had been no bodily harm so far. That had to count for something right? 

And if he actually ended up enjoying most of Sam's stupid date ideas well, he could always blame that on Parker's sappy dna.

Sure Sam was still annoying as fuck, too bright and bubbly and always laughing, where Kaine would rather brood, but he couldn't help finding everything the little sparkplug did endearing.

Well... everything except his endless gushing over god damn Spider-Man.

“Did you see that?! Man he's so great, the way he made that webbing net! That was so fast! Can you make a web net like that?”

Kaine glowers from across the room, his grip on the edge of the desk so tight he hears the wood creak in protest.

Sam turns to look at him, and his bright smile dims a little, his eyebrows furrowing.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Kaine grits out, letting the poor innocent desk go and stomping across the room, headed towards his bedroom.

“Woah woah wait!” Sam says, running his stupid little legs over and getting in Kaine's way before he can escape. “Seriously what's wrong? I know it's something. You're always frowny but when you get really mad there's this vein that goes all throbby in your neck-”

Kaine clenches his jaw hard enough that his teeth grind together.

“Yeah that one right there!” Sam points. “And you go all clenchy like that!”

“Shut up.”

He tries to step around the tiny frustrating roadblock, but Sam just moves with him. “You aren't getting passed me until you tell me what's up,” Sam says.

Kaine glares down at him. Then he grabs his shoulders, lifts him up and sets him down off to the side before stalking to his room and slamming the door shut.

“Jerk,” he hears Sam mutter through the door, and figures that's that. Sam will fly away and leave him in peace, and tomorrow he can pretend like nothing happened. Or maybe Sam will realize his mistake and leave him. The only thing he can do is thank the universe that it won’t be for Spidey, though he's sure that'd be Sam's first choice. But Peter would never go for him. Peter is better than Kaine in every way and wouldn’t go for a relationship with a junior hero. 

Kaine pauses as a thought hits him. Peter is better than him sure, except that he wouldn't be able to get past knowing Sam when he was younger to see how special he is. How important and good and worthy the little asshole is of love.

He stabs the pillow with his wrist spike, unaware up until that moment that he'd even had them out.

He pulls his arm back and brings a line of stuffing along with him. Pulling back further only serves to pull more and more of it out until he's shaking his arm frantically, a long snake-like line of stuffing flailing through the air around him.

“Uh... you okay?” Sam asks, and Kaine jerks in surprise, looking up guiltily as the stuffing finally detaches and falls to the bed, leaving his arm raised in mid air. He hadn’t even heard the door open.

There's a beat of silence and then Sam is laughing so hard he has to double over, gasping for air. Kaine tries to glare until he's done, but he's pretty sure he's smiling by the time Sam catches his breath and comes over to sit down beside him.

“So like... do you just hate that pillow a lot? Or is this about something I did? Because it kinda feels like something I did,” the smile on Sam's lips dies as he speaks, until he's left with a very serious and very worried looking Nova perched on the bed with him.

Kaine stays silent long enough that he figures Sam might leave, but instead he just reaches out, placing his hand on Kaine's wrist where the stingers were just minutes before.

Suddenly he feels like a teenager, not that he ever got to really be a teenager. If this is what it's like it isn't much fun.

“What's with you and fucking Spider-Man,” he manages to say after another brief pause. Sam gives him his best confused puppy look, and he really wishes he didn't find that so painfully... adorable is the right word but he's loathed to think it.

“What? You're the only Spider-Man I fuck...” he says, and it actually takes Kaine a second to realize he's joking.

“Shut up. Answer the damn question.”

Sam thinks for a moment, studying Kaine's face. “I like him. He's cool and he's the kind of hero I look up to y’know? He started out like me, and he's still going and I kinda hope I'll still be as awesome as him when I'm an old geezer like that,” Sam says, knowing full well he's making fun of Kaine's age as well.

It figures. Sam hero worships the guy. He sees just as plainly as everyone else that Peter is the best of them. That Kaine is the defective copy, and nothing can live up to the original.

“But,” Sam continues, his grip tightening on Kaine's wrist. “He's not my favourite spider hero. There's this other asshole, Scarlet Spider, and he's the even cooler. He's just as good as Spider-Man, only I kinda think he might be even better? Because like, he's been through all this stuff, and you know I think Spidey knows for sure he's a hero right? But this Scarlet Spider guy, he totally doesn't. And he still keeps doing the right thing, and trying and stuff. I dunno, I just think that's pretty cool.”

Kaine's throat feels tight, like all the air has been sucked out of the room.

“Plus his powers are way cooler! Like he can melt your face off and he has these stabby things he uses to totally annihilate pillow- mph!”

Kaine is kissing Sam hard before he can even finish, though the kiss doesn't last for long. Mostly he did it to shut him up. It definitely has nothing to do with the way his words were making his heart ache.

“Shut the fuck up. You talk way too much,” he tells him seriously, and Sam grins that star-bright grin up at him.

“How about you make me,” he says, and it's fucking stupid and cliché, but it works. It always works.

Kaine kisses him and kisses him, and keeps on kissing him, not even breaking away when Sam struggles to climb up onto his lap.

Sam is stupid. He's stupid and he's young and he's infuriating and he's wrong. But for right now Kaine will let it go. For now he'll focus on kissing him until neither of them can breathe, and maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.


End file.
